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Facing discrimination from White hospitals as both patients and physicians,
African Americans began their own hospitals. In 1891, a group of Black physicians
founded the Provident Hospital and Training School Association in Chicago, the first
Black-operated hospital in the nation. Provident also held several other distinctions: it
had the first interracial staff, offered the first training space for Black nurses, and was
the site of one of the earliest open-heart surgeries in 1893. Black hospitals throughout
the country—primarily in the North—followed; by 1919, one hundred and eighteen
Black hospitals existed. During that same period, the number of Black nurses grew
significantly as well, greatly aiding the proliferation of Black hospitals. Spelman College
opened the first Black nursing school in 1881. 34
Numerous problems hampered Black hospitals though. Due to high Black poverty
rates, hospitals collected little money in patient fees, and Black hospitals usually did not
receive funding from state or local governments. The lack of government aid forced
these institutions to rely on donations and fundraising campaigns and to endure
continuous money shortages. Financial problems made expansion extremely difficult,
limiting the number of patients who could be served and preventing improvements in
medical equipment and building facilities. This latter condition led to constant issues
with licensing inspections. Black hospitals also faced staffing problems. Very few White
medical schools admitted African Americans, and only seven Black medical colleges
existed by 1910. Like hospitals, these schools faced funding problems. In 1904, the
American Medical Association created the Council on Medical Education (CME) to study
and standardize medical education. The CME asked the Carnegie Foundation to fund a
study, led by Abraham Flexner, of all medical colleges in the United States. Of the
seven Black medical schools in existence at the time of the Flexner Report (1910), the
five colleges named in the report as "inadequate" all closed in the following thirteen
years. Only Howard University and Meharry College maintained their medical schools,
and another Black medical college did not open until the Charles Drew Medical School in
34
Gamble, Making a Place for Ourselves, 3.